Tips to improve your gas mileage

July 1, 2008 12:00:00 AM PDT

There's a new prediction that gas prices may be rising to seven dollars a gallon in the next two years. Lauren Fix, "The Car Coach" and author of "Lauren Fix's Guide to Loving Your Car: Everything You Need To Know To Take Charge of Your Car and Get On With Your Life," shares tips on how to make sure you get the most out of your gas.

What are some of the things we can do to get the best performance out of our engines to make sure we get the best gas mileage? Start with an oil change. And you don't want to skimp on quality. There are numerous tests, for example, that show that in comparison to other synthetic and conventional oils, Royal Purple increases horsepower, saves gas and reduce engine heat, wear and emissions. Most people see a 3 to 5 percent reduction in fuel costs and you don't have to change the oil as often. That saves time, money and is easier on the environment.

What about driving habits, what changes need to be made? How you drive has the most impact on your gas mileage. Advance Auto Parts has some free tips on its Web site, advanced auto parts.com. They include driving like there's an egg under the accelerator. No abrupt starts and stops. The site also has free video podcasts, including a clinic that shows you how to check your cars sensors. If something goes wrong, you can find out what it is with this Actron Scan Code Reader. It works just like plugging the keyboard into your PC

What about navigational systems? Getting lost eats up gasoline too. You really can't afford to get lost anymore. And navigational systems have come a long way toward keeping you on track. This smart new infotainment system from Harman International also keeps you entertained. It takes you straight to your destination with both sound and map views. It has full word input capability allowing for handsfree operation, making it one of the safest navigation systems on the market today

It seems everyone is using a phone in the car. What's new on that front? This is a really important issue especially since more and more cities and states are prohibiting the use of handheld cell phones while driving. Parrot has a portable bluetooth speaker phone called the parrot minikit which uses voice recognition so you can keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.

Book signing Lauren Fix will be signing copies of her book at: Borders Tuesday, July 1st 7:00 PM 400 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94102